| Final | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cincinnati Reds (7-3) |
3 | 5 | 1 |
| San Francisco Giants (6-4) |
0 | 2 | 0 |
| W: W. Miley (2-0) L: A. Sanchez (0-1) S: Sims (1) |
|||
| Statcast | Gamecast Play-by-Play | Game Thread | |||
Prologue
It was Today’s Reds versus Yesterday’s Reds. Sure, you know about Johnny Beisbol and Disco. And you surely know about Buster Posey’s backup—a guy named Casali. And by now you know ex-Red Kevin Gausman will take the mound tomorrow. How about Wandy Peralta in the bullpen? Maybe you even know Alex Wood is on the Giants’ IL. But did you know they have a hitting coach by the name of Donnie Ecker?
Game 10
Thanks to Jesse Winker’s 2-run blast in the top of the 3rd with Tucker Barnhart on board, an end was put to Twitter reminders of the Reds’ scoreless inning drought. This is a good thing.
Things stayed quiet until the top of the 6th when the bill for all those barrels from Joey Votto finally came due. Number 19 made a visit to McCovey Cove off reliever Jarlin García to make the score 3-0. Votto is the first Red to hit one into the bay. 384 feet. This being San Francisco there’s a Surly Bonds of earth joke there if you squint hard enough.
The Arms
Wade Miley struck out the side in the 3rd. He would go to pitch 5 scoreless innings. His final line: 5 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 3 K, 1 W. Miley kept the ball down all night and kept the Giants at bay (pun intended).
Tejay Antone pitched 3 2/3 scoreless and struck out 5. Simply masterful.
Lucas Sims came on to get the final out.
What San Francisco Said
Play-by-play man Duane Kuiper and color guy Mike Krukow make up one of the better TV duos in the game.
Krukow after Suaréz takes one on the hand: The Reds have been hit more than any other team.
Krukow on Barnhart’s play coming out behind the plate to retire Darin Ruf: Not an easy play, but for a two-time gold glover like Tucker Barnhart, not a problem.
Kuiper: Barnhart, who was my player of the spring, Jon (Miller) and I did a game in Goodyear, Barnhart was catching against the Giants. There was not that many people there. Giants stole a couple of bases and some fan behind home plate stood up and said, “Hey, Barnhart, I’ll give you a thousand bucks if you throw somebody out today.” Barnhart stood up and said, “you’re on.” And two pitches later, Rob stole second.
Krukow on Antone: He literally has the ability to throw 100 miles per hour. You’re up there and you’re not going to look for anything but the fastball. What’s he do? Two quick curve balls. Good ones.
Kuiper: Got him.
Krukow: Three good curve balls.
Kuiper: I’d like to see what kind of numbers, home run wise, the Big Red Machine would have put up in Great American Ball Park.
Krukow discussing the Reds all-time HR leader board: So, Johnny Bench on top, Frank Robinson, Joey Votto and Tony Perez. Well, Robinson, Bench and Perez are in the Hall of Fame.
What Did We Learn Today?
Year-after-year, it has seemed the Reds get off to slow starts, then spend the next several months fighting an uphill battle to return to relevance. After a lost weekend in Phoenix, it wasn’t hard for a Reds fan to see the bats going into a slump and that fast start slipping away. At least for tonight, that narrative has been stopped in its tracks.
Final Thoughts
It was nice to see Antone come to the plate to bat in the top of the 9th and out to the mound to finish this game off. With apologies to Amir Garrett, the Reds don’t need a dedicated closer. They need a situational closer. Tonight, after Antone hit a batter and had thrown 60 pitches, the short leash was yanked and that guy was Lucas Sims. Tomorrow, it can be someone else. As the Giant announcers said about Tejay, “the only good thing for the Giants is they won’t see him (Antone) the rest of the series.”
On Deck for the Redlegs
Cincinnati Reds at San Francisco Giants
April 13 at 9:45pm ET
Castillo (1-1, 6.97 ERA) vs. Gausman (0-0, 1.32 ERA)
Living miles away from the US had the chance to watch this game, starting at 4:45AM local time. Solid outing by Miley and again, an outstanding presentation by Antone. Good to see Votto hitting the ball consistently hard, hits will come more often. Other than Winker’s and Votto’s blasts not much to say about the offense, but the cold and spacious Oracle Park didn’t allow for more. Hopefully Castillo will go 7+ innings tomorrow, GO REDS!
It’s very, very much not a coincidence that Gray is lined up with Hoffman’s spot – and with the off day Thursday, Antone is lined up with De Leon’s spot. May be only a few days away from having our optimal starting rotation be a full go.
Yeah, I think we’re there. Why make two changes when you can do both at once. Probably too sensible.
Antone is a nice piece even if used the way he was today, but we’re better with him in the rotation long and short term. Really nice to see the investment into Miley finally working out as well.
We’re probably another ace bullpenner from being a legitimate threat, the Iglesias trade still rearing its ugly head unfortunately.
I do not miss Iglesias.
I also see that Archie Bradley Jr was placed on the injured list, so there’s that. The Reds don’t have an injured closer like they may have, had they kept him.
i understood the bradley non-tender a lot more than a salary dump for a closer caliber reliever, i dont miss him. i know Iglesias wasnt perfect, but if you’d rather have DeLeon throwing changeups down the middle of the plate then i guess theres nothing i can say to ya
Antone is lined up to give De Leon relief if needed, but not to start.
Does anybody know when we will see hunter green out of the pen?
Hopefully never. Let’s hope we see him every 5 days for about 15 years.
David Price got his feet wet out of the pen with the Rays in a year they went to the WS. that seemed to workout OK.
It’s an option that they should keep open for the second half. It allows you to pick your spots where to use him while going from low to higher leverage situations.
The tricky part is having the intestinal fortitude to stick with a HG as starter in ST next year.
David Price was not a 27-year-old with 600+ innings in the minors when that happened. He was 22 and just drafted the previous season.
I don’t think there’s any doubt at this point that Antone belongs in the rotation. But I hate to lose him in the bullpen. The role he played in the win last night was huge, and outside of Garrett and Sims, I don’t have much confidence in anyone in the pen.
Cionel Perez my guy, you’ll see.
Yes, not much to choose from after Garrett and Sims: mid to low confidence level on Doolittle, Fulmer and Perez, next to zero confidence level on Bedrosian and Romano. Lorenzen looks to be far from returning, so after Gray and Antone join the rotation, Hoffman and DeLeon shall push those two out.
I just need to say i was wrong on Miley. Two great starts so far this year. I didn’t think he’d make that many all year. Great to see! Hope he keeps it up. Love how fast he works.
Miley is the leftie the Reds have needed in the rotation, and when he gets it done it’s usually less than a 3 plus hour game.
Thank you for mentioning Kuip and Kruk. They really are the best. No disrespect to Reds and other Broadcasting teams. They are getting along in years now, aren’t we all but they are always complimentary to visiting teams. Legends in the Bay Area.
Kruk was always to me the Everyman player. Gritty, not flashy, down-to-earth and likeable
Oops I was talking about John Kruk
With Miley’s performance, and Gray and Antone (hopefully) moving to the rotation, Michael Lorenzen may be that ace bullpenner you’re looking for. I know he wants to start, but if Antone and Miley keep performing, his injury doomed his starting career at least for this season.
And on Iglesias, he hasn’t exactly been stellar. Small sample alert (5 games) but he’s sporting a 66 ERA+ with 2 HRs allowed. He is averaging 18 k/9 though.
Meant as a reply to 2020ball above. Oops
getting Lorenzen back is key for sure
Getting the W last night certainly becomes more problematic if Antone doesn’t go nearly 4 innings, but he needs to be starting. That said, if we find out he tires at the 4 inning mark like last night then maybe what we saw becomes the template…..much in the way the Brewers deployed Hader the last couple years—bring him in for multiple inning saves and ONLY when you have a lead. Lock down the winnable games and worry about tomorrow’s game tomorrow.
Nice to see Votto getting positive results. Great to see the natural talent shine without the layers of overthinking. Now if he can just figure out how to catch a thrown ball! lol
Two great starts by Miley. If we can get this kind of production out of our #4 , it’s gonna be hard for the rest of the division to keep up.
It might be heresy around these parts, but is India as smooth as Brandon Phillips defensively? I’m kind of thinking he is. Both are excellent at converting tricky hops into outs.
Antone is still building up pitch counts after the Spring setback. I wouldn’t exactly say he tired in his 4th inning. He allowed 1 baserunner in the 9th. Bell most likely pulled him when he reached pitch 60, because that was the limit the training staff left. If he starts next game, I’d assume they’d let him go 90.
You left Wisler out of first paragraph yesterday’s Reds.
Bell said in the Spring that Antone is too valuable in the bullpen to start. Don’t think anything has changed. Do think Gray replaces DeLeon in rotation and either he or Bedrosian on the roster.
Certainly glad Votto said he worked hard to improve his defense that was so embarrassing to him in 2020. Unfortunately hard work didn’t help.
Bell takes a lot of flak here, including from me, but that was an extremely well-managed game last night.
Couldn’t agree more. That said, Bell did something out of the norm, and that is he didn’t micro manage as much. He did still pull Miley too early though.
It sounds like the third time through the lineup was going to look pretty hairy for Miley and they were starting to hit him hard. (Giants actually had the higher xOB% for the game bc of what they did with Miley)
Keeping Miley clean and using your best bullpen arm to carry this thing to the last out was a perfect call.
Sorry, meant xBA and that wasn’t true. It was close but the Reds were about 12 points higher.
With only two pitches working (and low velocity, to boot), Miley should rarely get to face a team’s best hitters a third time. Several Giants hit the ball hard the second time through the order, and their third time would probably be much worse for the Reds.